PM: Belarus seeks to decide on 2021 gas price soon

“There is no agreement yet. Negotiations are underway. The calculations for the gas we have consumed have been made. Now we have no debts to the Russian Federation. So we would like to reach an agreement on 2021 gas price soon. We hope that it will be attractive for us," Roman Golovchenko said.

As for oil from Russia, the annual volume of supplies to Belarusian refineries is estimated from 18 to 24 million tonnes. "The amount of supplies depends on the refining capacity of our enterprises, on the situation in the oil products markets. There are no fundamental problems with the volume of supplies," the prime minister said.

Like this year, Belarus will use oil from alternative sources next year. "Of course, we will purchase the bulk of oil from Russia which is delivered by pipeline transport. But at the same time we will buy some batches from other sources. The companies have an interest here as they can test different varieties to possibly increase the output of light petroleum products. This is absolutely natural and normal for any refinery. The situation with oil supplies is absolutely predictable for the next year," Roman Golovchenko said.

Speaking about the re-direction of commodity flows from Lithuanian ports to Russian ones, the prime minister said that we are now looking into the commercial aspects of this matter. "We do not want this to affect the economy of Belarusian enterprises. We would like to get certain favorable pricing terms from our Russian partners in order to diversify logistics supply routes," he said.